Celestia Forums

Ok by request of a forum member I whipped up this primitive earth circa 3-4 billion b.c. when the earth is beginning to cool to a more stable state...



opinions?

I also have to do the moon texture similar in volcanic activity...That Ill do tomorrow I suppose...

Ok heres 2 more higher detailed views to give you a better perspective...Hope this is what you were looking for Frank...

Ras',

Your closeups look great!

What did you use for a map of the continents?
Current maps, Pangaea, or something else?

its a random lunar cell specular map I used along with the surface map of venus...If anyone knows where I can get a good map of the continent layout during that time in earths history...I could have a more correct version of primitive earth up for grabs...

Unfortunately, we really don't know what the continents looked like more than about 150 MegaYears ago. That's when the current continents were adjacent to one another, forming the super-continent called Pangaea. The continental plates have been floating around for billions of years, crashing into one another, raising mountain ranges and breaking off pieces.

Figuring out how the bits and pieces fit together before Pangaea is a topic of ongoing research. Some guestimates can be found at http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm

In other words, a random map is probably as good as any other for that long ago.

I can't tell from the pictures you've posted -- do you include some craters, too? There should have been somepretty spectacular meteor strikes way back then -- similar to those that resulted in the Lunar Maria.

(written later:

I found a page with a summary of current thinking on the evolution of the Earth's surface. Apparently the ocean covered most of the surface of the earth at about 4 GigaYears ago, then chains of volcainc islands formed, with more and more land mass developing during the cycles of continental collisions. See http://geollab.jmu.edu/Fichter/PlateTect/synopsis.html )

Yeah I suppose I should increase the ocean coverage a bit...There are craters present but not much...Ill see about increasing this as well...

one suggestion, considering the theory on how the moon came to be (stating a large object colided with it, breaking off a large chunk forming the moon), maybe you should remove the moon and increase the planet size.

Actualy removing the moon could be done but the earth would be smaller not bigger. Earth at its present size is the result of the colision between a mars size object and the early earth. Earth was prbably closer to just over 5,000 miles in diameter then. When you add the mass of something mars size and then deduct for the size of the moon that give you your sizes. And from what was said in the documentary I saw they said there was probaby only water one the very early earth with maybe a few islands here and there. But we can speculate until we are all blue in the face. We never will realy know anything about how things were in the very early solar system. But it was definetly a dangerous place to be.

Hi folks:
Well, Rassilon's Primitive Earth texture looks great, when added to Don Edwards volcanic moon texture. I've placed both in orbit around an arbitrary star, with the moon very close to earth in a huge tidal embrace. The effect is ideal. Rassilon and Don did a GREAT job. You can look at a whole gallery of screenshots on the Celestia Users Gallery. Go here:

http://ennui.shatters.net/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album05

The view Rassilon created is quite accurate. After impact by a major planet which knocked off a huge piece of both planets to form the moon, the Earth would have been a molten maelstrom for thousands of years. Eventually, it would have reformed but been highly volcanic. Oceans would be present but not in the volume they are now. Craters would be present but quickly filled in (within years) by extensive lava flows, so I don't know how many you would see. The Earth's atmosphere would not contain oxygen and would be colored a yellow/red to reflect its nitrogen/methane/ammonia/sulfur and CO2 content. Even the moon would have a thin atmosphere venting from its extensive volcanism.
Together, if you put Rassilon's Primitive earth together with Don Edward Volcanic Moon (see other thread in this forum), you get one hell of a primitive earth system.

The ssc file Rassilon created and which I modified slightly places the earth and moon under reasonable parameters. For ease of memory, I put the system around the star Tau Ceti. The code is:

"Primitive Earth" "TAU cet"
{
Texture "pearth.dds"
BumpMap "pearth-bump.dds"
BumpHeight 0.0
NightTexture "pearth-night.dds"
Color [ 0.55 0.45 0.15 ]
SpecularColor [ 0.65 0.65 0.55 ]
SpecularPower 65.0
HazeColor [ 0.65 0.65 0.15 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Radius 6378
Atmosphere {
Height 70
Lower [ 0.65 0.65 0.15 ]
Upper [ 0.65 0.25 0 ]
Sky [ 0.65 0 0 ]
CloudHeight 7
CloudSpeed 95
CloudMap "terra-Clouds.dds"
# CloudMap "errai_iv-moon_iii-clouds.dds"

}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 1.0000
SemiMajorAxis 1.0000
Eccentricity 0.0167
Inclination 0.0001
AscendingNode 348.739
LongOfPericenter 102.947
MeanLongitude 100.464
}

RotationPeriod 6.0344694 # 23.93419
RotationOffset 280.5 # offset at default epoch J2000
Obliquity -23.45
Albedo 0.20
}


"Moon" "TAU cet/Primitive Earth"
{
Texture "VA Moon.jpg"
BumpMap "VA Moonbump.jpg"
BumpHeight 2.5
NightTexture "VA brokencrust.jpg"
Radius 1737.5
Atmosphere {
Height 60
Lower [ 0.8 0.6 0.6 ]
Upper [ 0.7 0.3 0.3 ]
Sky [ 0.83 0.75 0.65 ]
CloudHeight 9
CloudSpeed 150
CloudMap "Thin Clouds.png"
}

Enjoy.

Frank

Hello and good evening:

I found the volcanic moon textures for download on the Celestia Hub. But where are the primitive earth downloads?

Tim Crews

You can pick up the dds files here: http://www.celestiaproject.net/~rassilon/pearth.zip

I will put together the jpg format of these textures soon and update my site...just as soon as Im completed with the current system Im on...unfortunately Ive been sidetracked with modding another game

Frank:

There is no orbit defined for the primitive moon in the above scc file fragment.

Tim Crews

Oops. Sorry. here is the orbit portion of the moon ssc. It picks up after the line about cloudmap:

CloudMap "Thin Clouds.png"
}

EllipticalOrbit {
Period 11.321661
SemiMajorAxis 25626
Eccentricity 0.0010
Inclination 0.01
}
RotationPeriod 8.0
Albedo 0.7
}

Just add it to my previous ssc post.
Sorry about that!

Frank